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en-usTechdirt. Stories filed under "photographers"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Wed, 1 Apr 2015 12:34:59 PDT'Mob' Detains, Threatens Photographers Because Single Adults Are Probably All PedophilesTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150331/16352430507/mob-detains-threatens-photographers-because-single-adults-are-probably-all-pedophiles.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150331/16352430507/mob-detains-threatens-photographers-because-single-adults-are-probably-all-pedophiles.shtml
To live in the US is to live in a nation of fears -- most of them, irrational. The Department of Homeland Security -- the eerily nationalistic-sounding phoenix that rose from the ashes of the World Trade Center -- has done all it can to turn Americans into government informants, where they're encouraged to turn in complete strangers for suspicious activities like not packing enough clothes or purchasing cookware.

The DHS fears nothing more than a person armed with a camera. If any citizen aims a lens at public transportation, infrastructure, certain manufacturing plants or government buildings, they're assumed to be practicing the dark art of terrorism.

Terrorism is only one of the nation's collective fears: one so seldom realized that the amount of attention paid to it by a vast number of government bodies is almost laughable.

Another fear that is almost inversely proportional to the amount of attention paid to it is child victimization, especially kidnapping and pedophilia. From a young age, parents and educators drill into kids' heads that all strangers are inherently dangerous. This is somehow supposed to protect children from abusers despite the fact that nearly 90% of abuse is committed by someone the child knows and trusts -- family members, child care providers, neighbors, close relatives, family friends, etc.

This hysteria over child sexual abuse has reached the point that being an unaccompanied adult (especially male) in an area frequented by children is considered inherently suspicious. Toronto's Legoland exhibit turned away a 63-year-old Lego fan simply because he wasn't accompanied by a child. The stated reason for this bizarre policy? To "protect the children." Likewise UK's Puxton Park, which turned away a 53-year-old man for the same reason. The explanation given by the park's director for its stupid policy is equally stupid:

He added: ‘There is a lot in the headlines about paedophiles and things that are going on with children.’

Perfect. The media says child molestation is happening pretty much nonstop and so it must be. Therefore, no single adults allowed. The perception is the reality. But as Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip pointed out in "Thou Shalt Always Kill:"

Thou shalt not think any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a paedophile/Some people are just nice.

"I received a call that there was a suspicious vehicle, a light brown Volvo station wagon, Massachusetts plate, and there was a male and female in the Raysal area taking pictures of some children," says Chief Deputy, Roger Deel.

Jennifer Adkins, the mother of three kids, and a resident of Raysal, is the one who contacted Chief Deputy Deel. She also confronted the photographers, with a group of others.

Audio recording captured the encounter. You hear a McDowell resident say, "And there are no pictures of any children on there?”

“No. And you can check it, not of your kids. I can show you. Jesus Christ. We didn't stop and approach like, yeah; you guys are making us out to be like crazy pedophiles. You guys are making us out to be people that we are not,” says Marisha and Jesse Camp.

“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You all don't look like upstanding citizens," says Jennifer Adkins.

The audio recording of the confrontation can be heard at WVVA's website. According to Marisha, another person threatened to "beat them and their cameras into the ground." Whatever violence might have resulted from this confrontation was prevented when a state trooper arrived and escorted the couple out of town. But the angry crowd already had all the justification it needed for harassing, threatening and detaining the couple -- and it's every bit as eloquent as the Puxton Park director's defense of his "no single adults allowed" policy.

A man says, “There's just too much going on with kids getting hurt and Y'all might be cool, I'm not saying you're not.”

That's what irrational fear gets us: irrational behavior. Not every adult with a camera is a security threat or a pedophile. Strangers may be unknown quantities, but they are not inherently dangerous simply because they're unknown. No combination of these factors should be considered untrustworthy by default.

But that's where we're at. And these irrational fears are stoked by some of the most trusted members of the community: law enforcement officials, educators and the media. Two of those three directly profit from permanently-heightened fears. The other -- educators -- parrot the skewed information delivered by the other two. The perception becomes the reality. And that "reality" manifests itself as the ugliness detailed above.

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]]>unburdened-by-evidence-or-logichttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150331/16352430507Mon, 28 Apr 2014 09:54:00 PDTDHS Fusion Center Admits Photographer Is Covered By 1st Amendment But Just Doesn't Like The Way He Treats OfficersTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140420/17461026975/dhs-fusion-center-admits-photographer-is-covered-1st-amendment-just-doesnt-like-way-he-treats-officers.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140420/17461026975/dhs-fusion-center-admits-photographer-is-covered-1st-amendment-just-doesnt-like-way-he-treats-officers.shtmlThe uselessness of the Department of Homeland Security's Fusion Centers has been detailed here before, but they've never been quite as useless as this. Here's the backstory, from Carlos Miller at Photography Is Not A Crime.

All Jeff Gray has been trying to do is ensure law enforcement officers honor the oath they swore to the Constitution upon receiving their badge, which is why he routinely video records them in public for his Youtube channel, HONORYOUROATH.

But that has led him to become the subject of an active investigation by the Florida Fusion Center, a collusion of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies encouraging citizens to rat on each other for taking too many pictures or asking too many questions.

When not recording interactions with cops, Gray also photographs publicly-visible structures like government buildings and prisons -- the sort of photography that has been equated with terrorism by the DHS.

Gray sent FOIA requests to several law enforcement agencies for anything they may have collected on his photography and recording efforts. Some requests didn't produce any documents, but others he obtained show that law enforcement agencies clearly don't know how to solve a problem like Jeff.

The most ridiculous document Jeff Gray obtained was from a DHS Fusion Center. Here's the Center's rationale for treating Gray with suspicion: He's clearly covered by the First Amendment. We just don't like his attitude.

Seriously.

On 06-23-2013, units with CCSO were dispatched to CCA, a private prison located within Columbia County, after being contacted by prison staff in reference to a suspicious person. The Subject was recording and or taking pictures of the front as he was standing on a public access across the street from the prison. Once confronted by prison staff the subject only stated that he was an independent journalist and was doing a story on the prison system. The subject refused to stop videoing after being asked to do so by prison staff. During the confrontation the subject referred to his first amendment right to be there and continued to question and press the staff to give him a reason why he could not record the outside of the facility. Once law enforcement arrived, the subject was asked for identification, the subject asked if he was being detained and once told that he was not he refused to provide ID to law enforcement. Ultimately the situation was diffused and the subject left. The subject later posted the videos of his encounters with the prison staff and CCSO Deputies on YouTube and on another website called photography is not a crime.com. This subject is exercising his first amendment rights, however the manner in which he lures the officers in is concerning.

To paraphrase Homer Simpson: it takes two to lure, one to lure and one to overreact to the utter lack of criminal activity. But the Fusion Center obviously believes that, First Amendment or no, Gray should be checked out because he's making police officers, prison staff and government agents looks bad with his "manner."

On the bright side (I guess…), the Fusion Center's "investigation" apparently involved little more than rigorously browsing the internet.

The following information has been learned from viewing the mentioned website and the subject's YouTube account.

The findings? Gray urges people to "flex their rights," and publicly calls out (via YouTube postings) officers who fail to respect his rights. Troubling stuff, but not for the reason the DHS thinks.

Beyond the DHS's belief that Gray's attitude should somehow nullify his rights, other troubling info was uncovered as well.

Gray also obtained a series of field intelligence reports from the St. Johns Sheriff’s Office regarding his video activity. One of the reports includes an incident when he was visited by the Florida Department of Children and Families after they claimed they received an anonymous tip that he had guns in his home, which is not a crime and not even a secret considering Gray is very open about his gun ownership.

But that didn’t stop DCF from interviewing his children at school without his knowledge before paying him a visit at home, which he video recorded and posted on Youtube, as well as his follow-up phone conversation with the investigator that his children were not in any imminent danger, so there was no need to further investigate him.

I guess the lesson here is that "luring" cops and security guards through the open exercise of your rights is all the reason needed for law enforcement and government agencies to open investigations. The implication that there's something more wrong with Gray's "luring" than there is with law enforcement's response is ridiculous. Law enforcement officers certainly don't need to "flex" their misguided muscle when confronted with a citizen "flexing" their rights. One is wholly optional while the other is actually protected activity.

This lousy spin attempt from the Fusion Center does nothing to improve the reputation of this national travesty. Maybe next time, officers could just walk away and not become YouTube fodder. But they can't seem to help themselves, and the DHS seems to believe it's all Gray's fault.

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]]>rights-apparently-dependent-on-compliant-behaviorhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140420/17461026975Wed, 15 May 2013 00:02:26 PDTCopyright Holders Will Define Details Of UK's Orphan Works Bill, But Not The PublicGlyn Moodyhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130510/03475523032/copyright-holders-will-define-details-uks-orphan-works-bill-not-public.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130510/03475523032/copyright-holders-will-define-details-uks-orphan-works-bill-not-public.shtml
The UK's new orphan works legislation allows works to be classed as orphans only after a "diligent search" has been conducted to find the owner. The fear expressed by some is that this "diligent" search won't be very diligent, allowing publishers to use materials that aren't orphans. That's actually wrong for a number of reasons, as Techdirt explained recently, but the continuing furor from photographers in particular has been such that the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) felt compelled to issue a document entitled "The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 –Your photos and you" (pdf) explaining how the system would work, and why the fears were unjustified.

"The 'diligent search' requirement will be defined through a working group so that it can reflect current best practice across all sectors," a spokesperson for the IPO told Out-Law.com. "This will make sure that any requirements are practical and manageable. The working group will include representation from creators, including the photography sectors, and users such as museums and archives."

Reading that made me wonder who exactly was on this working group, so I contacted the IPO's press office asking for details. Here's the list of organizations they kindly sent me:

There are two things that struck me about that list. One is the appearance of Stop 43, probably the most vociferous of the photographer groups that have been complaining about the new orphan works law. Let's hope that its presence here, and thus its ability to contribute to the definition of "diligent", means that it drops the rhetoric about how the UK government has "reversed the normal workings of copyright," when that's simply not the case.

The other thing is that in contrast to the two groups representing photographers, there is not a single advocate for the somewhat more populous general public. Of course, that's absolutely par for the course: the public is routinely overlooked whenever it comes to asking "stakeholders" what they think about proposed changes to copyright. The UK's welcome move to liberate hostage works at last would have been the perfect opportunity to break yet more new ground by engaging directly with groups representing the 60 million people whose views are never properly considered. Sadly, that seems not to be happening.

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]]>same-old-same-oldhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130510/03475523032Mon, 8 Apr 2013 17:00:00 PDTDailyDirt: More Trendy PhotosMichael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110126/14470812837/dailydirt-more-trendy-photos.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110126/14470812837/dailydirt-more-trendy-photos.shtmlportrait studios shutting down marks an end of an era. Families used to get all dressed up to go to a special corner of Sears where a professional photographer would stage a nice portrait, and fuzzy warm photos would be sold in a respectably-sized frame. Sure, there are still plenty of other places to get your own image held hostage by copyright, but it's just not the same. Digital photography has brought photo-taking to the masses, and almost anyone can take a nice looking (staged) picture. Here are just a few examples of what kids these days are doing with their cameras.

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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]]>urls we dig uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110126/14470812837Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:07:57 PSTThe Pointless Copyright Freakout Over PinterestMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120222/03153517838/pointless-copyright-freakout-over-pinterest.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120222/03153517838/pointless-copyright-freakout-over-pinterest.shtml
But, as Pinterest hit some sort of inflection point right around the Super Bowl (with the help of Facebook integration), a bunch of people started noticing that there were some significant copyright questions involved. After all, the basic way it works is you make use of images you find online and "pin" them into a collection. But if you don't have the rights to use those images, is it infringement? Some are pretty sure that it violates the law in that it wasn't clear it would really qualify for fair use -- and there were also some questions about how thoroughly it complied with DMCA takedown requests. Either way, the issue began to explode with a ton of articles all discussing the copyright questions.

As this suddenly got so much more attention, Pinterest just rolled out a "nopin" meta tag, which allows website owners to basically block images from a site from being easily "pinned" to a Pinterest collection. Depending on who you listen to, this either answered all the copyright questions or merely represented a "small step" towards dealing with them. For angry photographers, I'd bet they're going to claim the latter is more accurate, if they'll even grant that much.

There's also a separate, but related, issue concerning Pinterest's terms of service that includes some boilerplate language that pretty much every online service includes and when someone reads them for the first time, they freak out about how Pinterest is claiming too many rights over the uploaded works. This is an exaggeration -- and we've seen the same thing happen with TwitPic and others, where the terms are there to make sure you're granting the site an effective license to display the works, and not as some nefarious plan to claim ownership of the works.

Either way, the community that's been most vocal about Pinterest and how it's something evil are photographers. While there are plenty of photographers who are quite reasonable on copyright issues, for some reason, it seems like photographers often can be the most extreme on copyright issues, and it's no different here.

However, it seems like (as the music industry did with Napster, and now the movie industry has done with cyberlockers), they're getting the wrong message out of what's happening online: these services are opportunities, not threats. If you want to understand why, I recommend reading (thoroughly) a recent blog post by photographer Trey Ratcliff, who goes into great detail not just about how Pinterest has been really useful for him (including in driving revenue), but that photographers need to stop treating everything as a threat, and start looking at these things as opportunities. Again, you should read the whole thing, but here are a few useful snippets. Ratcliff points out that treating everything as a threat means that you spend all your time trying to angrily shut stuff down, rather than getting your work out there. But there are real advantages to getting your work out there (and he explains why it should be high res, and without watermarks, contrary to the standard way that many photographers do thumbnails with annoying watermarks):

Most people in the world are good people. If they find digital art they want to buy for a print or use in a commercial campaign, they will figure out a way to get you money. 99% of your traffic is truly “window-shoppers.” They will look at your goods, take note, enjoy them and move on. But 1% will want to make a personal or business transaction with you....

[....]

StuckInCustoms.com has healthy traffic that grows every year thanks to good old-fashioned word-of-mouth. We don’t advertise or buy links or any of that stuff. So I depend on the Internet and nice people like you to link back to the site and tell your friends that you find something unique and cool.

Last month, we had 714,143 Pageviews and 234,107 unique visitors. 15% of this traffic came from Pinterest. Amazing! If Pinterest didn’t exist (a reality some photographers would prefer), then our traffic would be 15% less. Choosing to switch-off innovation is a fool’s errand, especially in today’s world. It reminds me of the scene in Anthem where the council of candle-makers becomes rather upset at the invention of the light bulb.

[....]

Someone on Pinterest can make a board called “Feeling a bit blue,” and they can fill it with cool-colored melancholy photos. Isn’t this just another way of making a poem? If I built up this pinboard and sent it to a friend, it’s nothing but a visual poem in a new medium. It’s just as powerful, and, in many ways, more accessible.

Pinterest is simply another way (a newer, evolving way, mind you) for humans to communicate with one another. It is increasingly the job of digital artists to inspire, share and bring more beauty and communication into the world.

There really is a lot more there, and it's worth reading the whole thing. Also, Ratcliff appears to be an absolutely awesome photographer, so I recommend checking out his work too.

Either way, his point is a strong one, and it's really no different than what many people have made to reactionary folks in other parts of the content industry. You can spend all your time trying to kill innovation or stop people from doing what they want to do... or you can bask in the wonderment that people want to do stuff, encourage them to do so, and make it easier for them to help spread your works... all the while making it easy for them to support you. Ratcliff seems to be a perfect example of our discussion on the benefits of being open, human and awesome.

And, in the end, that's the key point. Whether or not Pinterest is a copyright landmine is kind of besides the point. It's a really fascinating innovation that is having massive (unprecedented) success in terms of users. Clearly, it's tapped into a market by providing something that a very large number of people absolutely love. When that happens, there are always opportunities, and smart photographers should be focused on finding and embracing those opportunities.

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]]>same-old-songhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120222/03153517838Thu, 9 Sep 2010 15:38:54 PDTTSA Warns Against Evil Photographers Taking Pictures Of PlanesMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100908/16200810944.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100908/16200810944.shtmlwilliam points us to a Gizmodo post highlighting a TSA poster that appears to be suggesting that people photographing airplanes at airports somehow have nefarious intentions:

This really does seem bizarre. Is it really so evil to take photos of airplanes? Now, some might point out that they're just asking people to be "vigilant" (which is misleading anyway), but how does it help to suggest vigilance should be targeted at people doing an activity which is legal? It's the equivalent of crying wolf, and that doesn't help anyone.

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]]>plane-spottinghttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100908/16200810944Tue, 10 Aug 2010 03:26:40 PDTNewspaper Gets Around Photography Ban At Football Event With Cartoon IllustrationsMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100809/16233110561.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100809/16233110561.shtmllimit how journalists and photographers can report on their games, and have even covered cheeky attempts to get around such restrictions by having reporters cover events from home while watching on TV. Now, a whole bunch of you have been sending in variations on a story in the UK, where the Southampton football team apparently has decided to ban photojournalists from taking images of matches, instead telling newspapers they need to buy photos from the team's "official" photographer.

Thankfully, some of the newspapers covering the latest match felt that was ridiculous, and chose to respond in some rather creative ways. The Plymouth Herald, who was covering the visiting team, decided to employ someone to draw cartoons of key moments in the match, rather than using the official photographs:

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]]>don't-mess-with-reportershttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100809/16233110561Wed, 7 Apr 2010 18:33:00 PDTPhotographers The Latest To Sue Over Google Book Search DealMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100407/1006278913.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100407/1006278913.shtmldecided to file their own lawsuit. This was, in large part, driven by the judge in the existing case, who excluded photographers from the current lawsuit/settlement, because the photographers have a very different perspective and demands concerning the scanning.

While Google decided to cave rather than fight the good fair use fight on regular book scanning, it would be interesting to see if they decide to fight the photographers on this one. I would think they have a very strong fair use case -- and there is at least some case law to support this position. I know of two recent cases that had at least somewhat similar fact patterns, involving commercial entities using copyrighted images as part of an aggregated product -- and both were found as fair use.

Just last year, we wrote about a book that used old magazine covers drawn by artist Basil Gogos that looked at Gogos' artwork. The magazine that originally published the artwork claimed copyright violations, but the district court found a strong fair use claim in noting that it was "fundamentally transformative in nature." The other case, involves old Grateful Dead posters, where someone published a book of the posters, but was sued by the Bill Graham Archives, claiming copyright infringement over those posters. Once again, the court said this was fair use, despite it being a commercial endeavor. Again, part of the reasoning was that this was an aggregation of the content, and the overall quality of the images did not match up to the original posters. Given the low-fi quality of Google book scans, it seems likely that the same claim makes sense for photographic/visual media works that Google scans in books as well. It's worth noting, also, that the Grateful Dead poster decision took place in the same district court (Southern District of NY) where this new lawsuit is being filed.

Even so, this whole thing seems confusing, and feels like a pure moneygrab by photographers. The images from a Google book scan are not high quality in any way. They're certainly not going to replace or act as a substitute for the original works. In fact, it's difficult to see how they would do anything but increase the interest in the original, higher quality, works.

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]]>sue-sue-sue-suehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100407/1006278913Thu, 6 Mar 2008 16:08:00 PSTMaking Your Work Hard To Find Isn't A FeatureTimothy Leehttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080305/065022446.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080305/065022446.shtmlhelps "protect" photographers from the scourge of their work being too easy to find. They cite Lane Hartwell, the photographer who got bent out of shape when one of her photographs appeared briefly in a popular viral video, as an example of the kind of photographer who would benefit from the site. I can understand why she'd be unhappy that she didn't get credit for the use of her photo, but I don't see how switching to PhotoShelter would have improved the situation. Most of the money in photography is going to be from commercial clients. Companies tend to be pretty good about paying for photographs (and other content) because they've got deeper pockets and less plausible fair use claims. On the other hand, non-commercial uses of photos aren't going to be very lucrative; most individuals and smaller non-profits will use a lower-quality free image rather than pay to license a professional photograph. Certainly the creator of a viral video isn't going to pay royalties on a product he's planning to give away for free. So the smart way to handle things is to treat non-commercial uses of your photographs as promotional opportunities, seeking credit rather than compensation. That should build your reputation as a photographer and hopefully get more commercial clients interested in your work. PhotoShelter appears to be a solid site for professional photographers looking to catalog and market their photographs. But the fact that the site makes it more difficult for people to find and use a photographer's work isn't something photographers should be cheering about.